THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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itu a l life comes under th e scope of our m entality, and th e Holy Spirit is our teach er to guide us into all tru th , and even a believer can study 10,000 times b etter w ith the help of th e Holy Spirit. A Ravenous Appetite Now, in the th ird place, th ere must be a ravenous appetite for Bible study. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them .” “ I have esteemed th e words of his m outh morte th a n my necessary food.” T h at pre-supposes you are here because you love th e Bible. If you don’t love to study th e Bible, you’d b etter postpone 'th is course of study, b u t th e appetite grows by w h at it feeds on, and if you haven’t any appetite, you need praying for. Sometimes a person is ru n down, depleted, delibi- tated , and goes to a doctor, and before th e doctor makes a diagnosis, he begins to quiz you. The first question is, how is your appetite? If you have no appe tite, you need medicine, you need tre a t ment. When a Christian has ho appe tite for God’s Word, it is a dangerous symptom. Remember w hat th e Israel ites said in th e w ilderness, “ Our soul loatheth th is light bread.” Light bread, indeed. It was angels’ food. If it was good enough for th e angels, it ought to have been good enough for th e Israelites. We rem ember th e food of th e Israelites— cucumbers, melons, garlic, etc. Many people p refer novels or newspapers to th e Bible—members of th e church too. They have no appe tite. To make any progress in Bible study, you m u st love the Bible. Unless you p u t your h e a rt into th e work, it is drudgery, and it never succeeds. The high est success is th e sp irit in which you do your work. God never says, “Well done, thou good and suc cessful servan t,” b u t “Well done, thou good and fa ith fu l serv an t.” Cultivate your appetite. A strong sp iritu al appe tite is th e g reatest sp iritu a l safeguard. “How sweet are Thy words unto my mouth, yea sweeter than honey.”
a conscious inducem ent to apply him self and to be faith fu l, and th a t accounts for it only in part. A Christian has a m entality illum inated by th e Holy Spirit. Once upon a tim e a young College stud en t w ent into a class in mathe- maticp w ith a problem in A lgebra unsolved, and he had studied long and h ard over th a t lesson b u t in vain, and when he got into th e class, as happens more th a n once, th e Professor sent him to the board to dem onstrate th a t p ar ticu lar problem th a t he didn’t have. Why does it always happen so? You have all th e re st of th e lesson perfectly, b u t you are always asked to do the th ing you cannot and haven’t done. This was a Christian stud en t. He didn’t relish standing up before th e class and failing. It was hum iliating. B u t he w ent rig h t up to th e blackboard and stood before it feeling very help less and very much ashamed, and then as he stood th e re w ith his back to th e class and his face to th e board, he prayed, “ O God, show me how to solve th is problem .” In th e tw inkling of an eye th e solution flashed into his mind, and he seized th e crayon and dashed off the figures, to th e applause of th e whole class. T h at was a m ental m iracle. It was th e Holy Spirit illum inating his m ind in answer to prayer. If he had wasted th e morning on th e campus loitering or gossiping, as many students do, he m ight have gone th e re and stood w ith his face to th e wall un til night and prayed un til he was black in th e face, and he couldn’t ha,ve been an swered. But he had grappled fa ith fully and honestly w ith th a t problem and couldn’t touch it, and w hat he couldn’t do God did in answer to prayer. Now th a t comes from having th e Holy Spirit as your m entality to stim u late you, to enlighten you and to help you, and our m inds need saving quite as much as our souls and quite as much as our bodies, 'for our highest life is a m ental life, and even our spir
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